When He's Right, He's Right

A couple of weeks ago, Richard Bradley blogged about Elbow's performance at Glastonbury. Good on him. I may not go as far as he does in his post about the general beauty of British Pop. But there's no denying it: That band is fantastic. And that song -- "One Day Like This" -- is a towering achievement. Please click below. I'll be shocked if it doesn't stay with you for a long, long time.

Well Done, Lads

This post in memorium to the British soldier who gave his life in the successful pre-dawn raid which freed the journalist Stephen Farrell from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan.

They Keep Pulling Me Back In

I was really contemplating stopping to watch Doctor Who with the new cast change -- there's already so much on queued on my new Roku.

But now I see that Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) is writing an episode. So, they've got me back.

Any Day Now

It's World Cup time again ... and it's looking like David Beckham may not be included on the squad going to South Africa.

There are milestones in life: When you are older than Playboy centerfold models, when you are older than the President of the US, and when sport stars have entire careers while you are paying attention.

Well, Becks can't carry on forever ... his not playing for England just seems wrong.

The Real Heroes

September 3rd marked the beginning of World War II.

Neville Chamberlin delivered the news in his famous stiff-upper-lip manner:

"I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 0'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."

Plain words that made history. And it set in motion an effort that's beyond words. Sure the soldiers and sailors and airmen made history, but the Germans would have never been defeated if it wasn't for the average British subject. America would have never entered the war if it wasn't for the bravery of those people through the Blitz.

There's a great podcast featuring some of the speeches that motivated these remarkable people.

But my favorite came later, from the Bulldog, and is worth remembering every day:

"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Not Quite Cricket or "Putting Some English On It."

Not that I've tried that hard, but I still still find cricket a sticky wicket. I do know enough to be aware that England have won some big contest recently (I think against the Aussies?) and that they now have something called "the Ashes."

One thing that really surprised me: Apparently, Lilly Allen is a mad for the game. She's even been known to hire helicopters to get her to games so she won't be late -- and I don't think they are any cheaper there than here. Lilly says that in her hectic life, cricket is a moment of calm. I get that ... with those five-day contests, it must be like playing our (yawn) baseball in a vat of treacle. Baseball's my favorite sport, so count me in!

Other news in sport: Footie started on the 15th of August and Chelsea is out front. Of course, Man U won again last year, so it's going to be another interesting season ... If I can manage to keep on top of it.

Had to Laugh

I'm still furious about the Lockerbie thing, but here's a zinger from Andy Parsons on BBC Radio's I Guess That's Why They Call It the News:

"The Americans are furious, they say there's going to be less American tourism. But surely, that's good for actual Scotish tourism. Less American tourists means that tourists from every other part of the world will be thinking, "Brilliant! This the time to go to Scotland."

Badly Done

I don't like to get political, but news that Downing Street approved the release of the monster partly responsible for blowing up the plane over Lockerbie has me pretty cross.

I'm not going to get cute with this post. I just want to say that although I wasn't directly affected, one thing stays with me about this act of terrorism: So many of the victims were returning from their overseas studies in London. I can't say how many people I know who went through that program. Of course, every tragedy like this has its victims and none are more special than any other.

But those students returning from the semester abroad, that's what gets me.

Skype, I Love You

Wow. I just looked at the date of the last post. No excuses ... I just took a break and I'm sure I alienated my wonderful audience. Let's see how this goes.

I had a great experience in the interim, doing business with some great friends in the UK. Most of it was email, but a lot of it was done via Skype. These guys had Skype enabled on their phone -- in their words, the equipment was "nothing as posh as an iPhone." It just came on their regular handset. Now that is civilized. Of course, they had to know I was calling and have it turned on, so I mostly did "Skype Out," but that's still only 5 cents a minute or something. So much better than the bad old days.

We even did something very revolutionary: I needed to do a video shoot there, and my thought was to have a Skype video conference so I could see and hear the interview subject. That didn't happen due to the lack of WiFi in the the remote Western pub we were shooting in, but they were able to SMS ("text") some photos, which helped a great deal.

We are getting closer. There's only one final frontier that no one seems to be even willing to discuss: the time difference. No matter what you do, the sun is going to rise there at a different time that it does here. If the world were to switch over to Universal Time (UT), then someone would have to start getting used to waking up at 03:00.

And guess what, UT is just another way of saying Greenwich Mean Time. With the way the metric system went over here, good luck. And having London be the de facto center of everything (in that the sun will rise at 06:00 and set at 19:00, depending on the season)? This might take a while.

My Wife Went to London and All I Got was this Lousy T-shirt (Really!)

She assures me that everyone is wearing this Saatchi Gallery souvenir ... but I mean, come on ... so cliche.